Peter McDonagh (born 22 December 1977) is an Irish

professional boxer Professional boxing, or prizefighting, is regulated, sanctioned boxing. Professional boxing bouts are fought for a purse that is divided between the boxers as determined by contract. Most professional fights are supervised by a regulatory auth ...

Controversial Irish title fight against Michael Gomez

McDonagh fought

Michael Gomez Michael Gomez (born Michael Armstrong; 21 June 1977) is a former professional boxer who competed from 1995 to 2009. He was born to an Irish Traveller family in Longford, Ireland, spending his early years in Dublin before moving to London and l ...

on 28 January 2006 for the Irish lightweight title on the undercard of a

Bernard Dunne Bernard Dunne (born 6 February 1980) is an Irish former professional boxer and a former WBA (Regular), and European Super Bantamweight champion. On Saturday 21 March 2009, Dunne defeated Ricardo Cordoba in the 11th round to become the WBA ...

fight at the National Stadium, Dublin, Ireland. Gomez had been out of the ring for almost a year and was due to fight Scottish

Willie Limond Willie Limond (2 February 1979 – 15 April 2024) was a Scottish professional boxer and footballer. He held the EBU European Union super featherweight title in 2004, the Commonwealth lightweight title from 2006 to 2007, the Commonwealth super ...

for the WBU lightweight title but turned down that opportunity for a chance to fight for an Irish title. After the fight was signed Gomez stated ''"I just can't wait to get my hands on that Irish title because I've been desperate to fight in Ireland for years"''. Leading up to the fight McDonagh was seeing the famous paranormalist

Uri Geller Uri Geller ( ; ; born 20 December 1946) is an Israeli-British illusionist, magician, television personality, and self-proclaimed psychic. He is known for his trademark television performances of spoon bending and other illusions. Geller use ...

as mind coach to help him mentally prepared for the fight and Geller travelled with him to Dublin for the fight. Gomez commented that ''""I'm not sure Uri Geller will be of much use to him though because there won't be any spoons in that ring for him to bend. The only thing I plan on bending is some of McDonagh's ribs with my body punches"''. The first four rounds were relatively close with Gomez leading according to pundits but the fight ended in the fifth round in bizarre circumstances when for no apparent reason Gomez stopped fighting and failed to defend himself, he then received a number of unanswered punches from McDonagh before being floored. Gomez rose from the canvas immediately but appeared to ignore the referee and walk towards his corner while the referee continued with his count, and then left the ring as the referee was waving the fight off. The

RTÉ (; ; RTÉThe É in RTÉ is pronounced as an English E () and not an Irish É ()) is an Irish public service broadcaster. It both produces and broadcasts programmes on television, radio and online. The radio service began on 1 January 1926, ...

commentator

Steve Collins Stephen Collins (born 21 July 1964) is an Irish former professional boxer who competed from 1986 to 1997. Known as the Celtic Warrior, Collins is the most successful male Irish boxer in recent professional boxing history, having held the WBO ...

commented that ''"I smell a rat, something's not right here"''. The

Boxing Union of Ireland The Boxing Union of Ireland (BUI) is the governing and sanctioning body for professional boxing in Ireland. Foundation and organisation The BUI was founded in 1980, and replaced the BBBofC associated "Irish Boxing Board of Control", which ha ...

(BUI) suspended both fighters purses, and investigated reports of unusual betting patterns and large sums of money being placed on McDonagh to win inside the distance and more specifically in the fifth round after on McDonagh to win the fight in the fifth-round had been cut from 125–1 to 18–1 by the afternoon of the bout. Following an investigation, the BUI released the purses to each of the fighters, stating ''"Michael Gomez and Peter McDonagh confirmed that neither they, their families, nor any person in their camp, as far as they were aware, betted on the fight"'', but expressing disappointment that the

bookmaker A bookmaker, bookie, or turf accountant is an organization or a person that accepts and pays out bets on sporting and other events at agreed-upon odds In probability theory, odds provide a measure of the probability of a particular outco ...

Boylesports, who had suspended wagering on the bout due to the unusual betting patterns, had chosen not to reply to the investigators' queries. Gomez later explained the loss by saying that ''"it was all very simple, I just came to a decision in there that I need to retire from boxing full stop"''. Gomez further indicated that he planned to pursue a career in body building. McDonagh, meanwhile, claimed that he had won because

had helped him mentally prepare for the fight.

Irish ranking

In 2005, McDonagh was ranked 4th by the Boxing Union of Ireland in the light welterweight division. He is currently ranked second in irish-boxing.com's rankings of lightweights after moving down a division, and is ranked number 2 in the current Boxing Union of Ireland lists.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:McDonagh, Peter 1977 births Living people Boxers from County Galway Irish expatriate sportspeople in the United Kingdom Irish male boxers Lightweight boxers